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Chapter Five: Psychology and Culture Key Terms/Concepts: [from text] cognition ways of thinking, knowing, problem-solving, & remembering culture of acquisition idea that we acquire culture as a body of knowledge display rules culture-specific rules for behavior emotion feeling state physiological, cognitive, & expressive components intelligence/IQ culture-specific knowledge & cognitive styles [multiple intelligences (Gardner): musical, bodily-kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, linguistic, spatial, interpersonal, & intrapersonal EQ] learning development of skills, capabilities, & behaviors masking cover one emotion with the expression of another emotion mental illness maladaptive or dysfunctional patterns of thought & behavior perception organization & interpretation of sensory information personality a person's unique characteristics & behaviors distinct ways of thinking, feeling, & behaving situated learning the process situated in the context of doing the activity [apprentices/more formal] situated practice learning from those who know as peripheral participants [children/informal] ways of behaving individualism vs. groupism ***** Psychological anthropology studies cross-cultural variation in psychological traits societies instill different values by training children differently [enculturation] adult personalities reflect a culture's child-rearing practices since the 1960s, has moved away from broad national character studies and focused more on narrowly drawn set of problems investigation of more particular psychocultural phenomena such as symbolism, cognition, & consciousness in specific societies Trobriand Islands Malinowski [1920s] kinship is reckoned matrilineally consider self related to the mother and her relatives, not the father relative who disciplines the child is not the father but the mother's brother (maternal uncle) show a marked respect for the uncle, with whom the boy has a cool & distant relationship in contrast, the father-son relationship is friendly & affectionate
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Relationship between culture & personality Benedict, Boas, Sapir, & Kardiner [1920s & 1950s] feeding, weaning, toilet-training also how group personality traits could be reflected in a culture stimulated by need to know more about US allies and enemies during WWII national character studies today, these studies are not taken seriously because of difficulties in generalizing about large & diverse societies [stereotypes often based on hasty, even ethnocentric judgments] The Semai of central Malaya famous for their timidity have never been described as hostile or surly ["we do not get angry"] The Yanomamo of the Brazil-Venezuela border known for their aggressiveness chronic warfare between villages as well as very aggressive within own village interactions shouting & threatening to obtain demands men are proud of scars ["fierce people"] Yet, have psychological similarities all human; cry or weep when a loved one dies; laugh or smile when something good happens, learn from mistakes, & have many of the same needs North Americans easily think about personality differences we talk about the psychology of those we know we speculate why one friend is emotional, why one has a quick temper, why another is shy, why one friend remembers faces, why another is a whiz at computers, etc. because every person has a unique combination of genetic traits & life experiences, we say that in some ways no person is like another However, anthropologists approach personality not from the focus on the individual, but from those aspects of personality that may be common in a population. Why should we expect different societies to differ in some personality characteristics? A considerable portion of our lives are spent with others much of the way parents rear children is influenced by their culture by typical patterns of family life by shared conceptions of the way to bring up children Cross-cultural variation in psychological characteristics: Degree to which an infant is held by a caretaker during the day o In the US & other Western countries an infant spends much of the day in a crib, playpen, or stroller
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o In China a baby spends a good deal of time in physical contact with the mother or other caretaker swaddling boards or carriers strapped to the caretaker
Preschools in Japan, China, & US: [Tobin, Wu, & Davidson (1989): differences based on cultural values about the nature of children, the importance of the motherchild bond, and the social value of the group in relation to the individual Japanese impart empathy, gentleness, social consciousness, kindness, cooperativeness, obedience, enthusiasm, energy, liveliness & perseverance-- encourage older children to help smaller children; class size--30 children and higher student-teacher ratio to teach responsiveness to a group & reflect the complexity of the outer world; gives each child a chance to deal with a wider variety of children & situations; experience of camaraderie and unity with something larger than self; peer group disciplines disruptive child not the teachers ["groupism"; preschool is a needed addition to the family, teaching children sensitivity to the needs of the group while providing opportunities for children to develop playfulness & imagination] Americans impart independence, individuality, & creativity, yet there are strict rules and clear limits on acceptable behavior; teachers intervene; "legalistic" and verbal emphasis; scolding and "time out" to think over behavior [children belong exclusively to their parents, in nuclear family homes; intellectual and creative development & happiness of the individual] Chinese: emphasis on their socialist ideology and the importance of modernizing the Chinese economy; principles of control, collectivism, selflessness, & comradeship--holds social responsibility as more important than individual pleasure; government's responsibility for protecting children's health, hygiene & physical well-being [whole care boarding schools]; teachers' to commitment the nation's good [teach group orientation; primary commitment to selflessness & collectivism best taught outside of the family, who might indulge the child, by the school]
Not easy to determine the extent to which members of a society share conceptions about child rearing see differences when we look at families in our own society: reflect different ideas of the "right" way to raise children In a study of unconventional California families headed by single mothers, unmarried couples, or living in communes researchers found these parents did not differ from the more conventional [married, living in nuclear families) parents both groups usually stopped breast-feeding after about a
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year, which is far below the worldwide average [70% of world's societies, mothers typically breast-feed children for at least two years] also, in this study, no parent [conventional or unconventional] was observed to carry a baby more than 25% of the time, but it is common in many pre-industrial societies for babies to be held more than half the day Degree of indulgence: how quickly respond to an infant's needs Amount of time holding, feeding on demand, responding to crying Industrial societies (such as the US) tend to indulge babies less than do preindustrialized societies Estimated that babies are held or touched only 12-20% of their daytime hours in countries such as US, England, & Netherlands and in Japan In pre-industrial societies, babies are more apt to be close to another person, usually sleeping with the mother in the same bed or the same room In many pre-industrial societies, people respond very quickly to an infant's crying Efe in central Africa, a 3-month-old infant who cries gets a response within 10 seconds 75% of the time In the US, a caregiver deliberately does not respond at all about 45% of the time Parents in the US say they do not want their babies to be dependent & clingy; want to produce independent & self-reliant children whether children become self-reliant because of our kind of child rearing is debatable however, our attitudes about child rearing are consistent with our practice Concept of Self: Geertz Western conception of person as bounded & unique with dynamic center of awareness, emotion, judgment, & action organized into a distinctive whole His work in Bali, Java, & Morocco these societies differ from each other as well as being quite different for the Western conception Balinese describe a person as having many different roles [like an actor who plays different characters]; the unique characteristics of a person are not emphasized rather focus on the "masks" people wear & the "parts" they play Other scholars argue for recognizable & predictable patterns Western emphasis on the self as an autonomous individual [individualism] & the nonWestern emphasis on the relations a person has with others [groupism/holism/collectivism] "egocentric" vs. "sociocentric"
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Japanese concept of self "relational" or "situational"; people exist in networks of relationships, so the ideal person has the ability to shift easily from one social situation to another Objections to contrasting the Western sense of self with the non-Western o Studies of other cultures have suggested other dimensions of variation besides "individualism" vs. "collectivism" the traditional Inuit concept of [inummarik] "genuine person" seems to include a lifelong process of ecological involvement interacting with animals & the environment as well as people a culture's concept of self may include other dimensions than individ...